Today's News-Saturday, February 7, 2009

POTTSVILLE MAN CHARGED WITH MOLESTING TWO CHILDREN

A Pottsville man is jailed on charges of sexually molesting two young boys in Schuylkill Haven. 42 year old Gene Edwards is allegedly to have committed the crimes late last year against a 4 and a 2 year old boy at the home where he was living at the time. A joint investigation between Schuylkill Haven police and Schuylkill Children and Youth workers uncovered the assaults. Edwards was arraigned on charges of statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault. He was sent to county prison in lieu of $75-thousand-dollars bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for next week.

SHENANDOAH MAN GOES TO JAIL FOR STABBING

A Shenandoah man has been sentenced for stabbing a man in the eye. 28 year old Robert Gomez, originally from Honduras, learned his fate in Schuylkill County Court Friday. According to the Republican and Herald, Gomez was found guility in December of aggravated assault and related counts for stabbing a man in the eye last June. Gomez is sentenced to 5 years in state prison. Federal immigration authorities plan to deport Gomez after his sentence is served.

LAYOFFS ANNOUNCED FOR BLUE MOUNTAIN HEALTH SYSTEM

LEHIGHTON, Pa. (AP) - A Carbon County hospital system says it is making layoffs and other moves to cut costs amid the national economic downturn. Blue Mountain Health System says 22 people have been pink-slipped. The system, which operates hospitals in Lehighton and Palmerton, will also eliminate eight unfilled jobs. A hospital vice president says the cuts should save $1.2 million a year. Other moves in the plan to reduce costs include suspending company matches to employee-funded retirement plans, and freezing pay for a year. Blue Mountain is among Carbon County's largest employers, with more than 1,000 employees. The job cuts represent just over two percent of its work force.

PICK YOUR SEEDS CAREFULLY

They're alluring, they're glossy and they are filling up your mailbox. The gardening catalogs are coming, and a specialist in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has tips to avoid being seduced by a pretty picture. Gary Abdullah has the story:

ABDULLAH

NE Pa. county budget dispute settled

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - A dispute about court funding in a northeastern Pennsylvania county is settled now that the county has a new top judge. The settlement between new Luzerne County President Judge Chester Muroski the head of the County Commission was announced Friday. The dispute began in December, when commssioners decided lay off employees, including more than 50 in the courts. Mark Ciavarella, who was then president judge, sued over the layoffs, saying any judicial budget cuts would cause "irreparable harm." But Ciavarella was removed from the bench last week after federal prosecutors accused him of taking kickbacks. With Muroski in charge of the courts, the dispute was settled.

Arson-plagued Pa. city tightens juvenile curfew

COATESVILLE, Pa. (AP) - The police chief in a southeastern Pennsylvania city plagued by arson says everyone under the age of 18 must be off the streets by 8 p.m. Coatesville's curfew had been 10 p.m. until the new time announced Friday. But a city spokeswoman says through Saturday night, juveniles out between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. won't get citations as long as they comply with police orders to get off the streets. Also, the city says police will soon issue citations to people who have combustible items on their porches. City officials declared a state of emergency last month after a blaze struck 15 row houses, displacing dozens of people. The most recent arson was Tuesday night. Coatesville is about 35 miles west of Philadelphia.

Yao sentenced to 5 years in prison

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - Federal prosecutors say the former chief executive of Student Finance Corp. has been sentenced to five years in prison for fraud. Forty-seven-year-old Andrew Yao of Bryn Mawr, Pa., also was ordered on Thursday to pay restitution of more than $12 million and is subject to forfeiture of $1 million. Yao pleaded guilty in June to a 10-cout indictment charging him with seven counts of making class statements to a financial
institution and other offenses. Prosecutors say Yao got loans totaling more than $40 million
while he was president and sole shareholder of Student Finance, which has been in bankruptcy since 2002. Authorities say Yao hired a now-dead accountant to prepare fraudulent personal tax returns for himself and Student Finance.

W.Pa. man guilty but mentally ill in 8 arsons

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A mentally disabled western Pennsylvania man has been ordered incarcerated for up 10 years for a setting eight fires that caused $2.1 million in damages. Twenty-eight-year-old Robert Franklin Ray Jr., of Connellsville, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty but mentally ill for the fires on. Fayette County Judge John Wagner Jr. acknowledged Ray has an IQ of 54 and ordered him placed in a mental treatment facility.
If Ray is ever released from the treatment facility, he'll be transferred to a state prison to serve the rest of his sentence. The fires were set in a three-month span in 2005 and 2006 in Fayette County.

Eastern Pa. airport to renovate terminal

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - An eastern Pennsylvania airport is moving ahead with plans to upgrade and renovate its terminal. The expansion plans for Lehigh Valley International Airport are being funded by a $3 million federal Transportation Assistance Program grant. In a statement, officials say the money will be used to upgrade the airport's screening facilities, baggage handling and ticketing areas. The airport is taking bids on the project with hopes of getting construction under way soon.

W.Pa. landfill fined for failing to weigh trash

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The state Department of Environmental Protection has fined a western Pennsylvania landfill $65,000 for accepting garbage without weighing it on a certified scale. The DEP says Allied Waste Systems of Pennsylvania Inc. had a broken scale in August at its Imperial landfill near Pittsburgh but accepted trash anyway and estimated the weight. Allied estimated the weight of 137 trucks and informed the DEP of the problem five days later. The DEP says accurate weights are needed to calculate fees paid to local, county and state governments. The DEP says the company had a similar problem in 2007 at a Westmoreland County landfill, resulting in fines of $234,500.

100 gallons of diesel spill at Pa. gas well site

DIMOCK, Pa. (AP) - Environmental officials say no water was contaminated after about 100 gallons of diesel fuel spilled at a natural gas drilling site in northeastern Pennsylvania. The spill happened a week ago at a Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. site south of Montrose in Susquehanna County. The Houston-based company is drilling gas wells into the Marcellus Shale rock formation there. State environmental protection department spokesman Mark Carmon says the spill did not foul groundwater or streams. He says the department ordered Cabot to hire a consultant to ensure that it removed all the contaminated soil. Crews at another nearby Cabot well site had to clean up about 800 gallons of diesel that spilled last spring.

American Eagle Outfitters sues Citigroup for fraud

PITTSBURGH (AP) - American Eagle Outfitters Inc. claims in a lawsuit that Citigroup Global Markets Inc. fraudulently induced it to buy $258 million worth of auction rate securities that it can now sell for significantly less, if at all. The suit says Citigroup represented the securities as safe and liquid and therefore compatible with American Eagle's conservative investment policies. Instead, American Eagle claims, Citigroup knew there wasn't enough demand for the securities to keep them liquid. Last February, the suit says, Citigroup stopped providing liquidity. Auction rate securities were once considered safe, but the market collapsed in February amid turmoil in the credit markets.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is using his radio and Internet address to hammer home the need for the economic stimulus package. Obama says the "scale and scope" of the plan is right. And, he says "the time for action is now." Obama says yesterday ended on a positive note, after a compromise was reached on a trimmer version of the bill.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan is on track to pass the Senate. Yesterday, a handful of moderate Republicans and Democrats forced more than $100 billion in cuts in programs that wouldn't create many jobs right away. The Senate meets again today, but no vote is expected before Monday.

SYDNEY (AP) - Police say they fear the death toll from Australia's wildfires could ultimately be more than 40. Officials say at least 14 people have been killed, including six in one car.
Temperatures around 117 degrees Fahrenheit and high winds have spurred dozens of wildfires across three states.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Peanut Corp. says it is "neither denying or admitting liability" after inspection records showed that the company knowingly shipped salmonella-laced products. The Food and Drug Administration says the Georgia plant sold products after confirming salmonella.

BALTIMORE (AP) - The was nothing relaxing at a Baltimore poolside for Olympian Michael Phelps. Phelps fielded questions from reporters at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center on the fallout created by a photo showing him inhaling from a marijuana pipe. Phelps said "It was bad and stupid judgment."